And yet series of questionable plays after series of questionable plays occurred between him(bayless), JJ, magloire, and Kleiza. Our bench SUCKED today and took all the life out of any burst of momentum we had.

Demar, JJ, and our starting front-court were really the reasons we were able to stay so close in this game whenever they kept trying to make runs. They may not have scored, or anything, but they brought really good energy, especially on both ends.

SVG takes notice

What can I say, I am a sucker for external validation:

You can hear the Raptors say a lot has changed over and over again, but some external validation is nice on occasion.

“It used to be that you never really thought you were going to have much of a problem scoring in here,” Van Gundy said before his team’s 92-88 win on Monday night. “It was all about how are you going to stop the Raptors and limit them. And now it’s not going to be an easy game to score.

“You’re in for a fight every single night when you play them. [Raptors coach Dwane Casey] has done as good of a job as anybody in the league this year.”

The story has been well told by now. Casey has moved the Raptors from a truly awful defensive team to a middle-of-the-pack defensive team. They have hung with some good teams despite the prolonged absence of Andrea Bargnani.

It is just at some point, you would like to see the hard work pay off, the losing lessons, pay off. In the last month, the Raptors have lost games to playoff-bound teams by two, three, three and now four points.

Against the Magic, there was a bizarre turnover from James Johnson, a missed rebound off of a free throw and plenty of other tiny mistakes.

“All of those things, they’re hard to explain,” Casey said. “But our guys, their hearts are in the right place. My heart is pure. I can sleep knowing our guys fought and scrapped. But the experience factor, you can’t rush it, you can’t teach it, you can’t give it to them. You can try to talk to them about it, try to show it. I wish I could jump in and do it for the guys and let them know, ‘In this situation, you’ve got to execute. Here’s what’s you’ve got to do. You can’t take chances. You can’t do something you know you can’t do in this situation.’ That’s where we are.”

And that is just how it will be for a little while. Without Bargnani, the Raptors have virtually no margin of error against a dialed-in contender. Everybody together now: The NBA is about talent, and they are on the wrong side of that battle on most nights.

“We’ve made the same mistakes [38] games into the season. That’s troubling,” Casey said. “But again, we started at ground zero. We started at ground zero with this program. We’ve made strides. To be in some of these games with some of these teams we’re playing, my hat is off to these guys. We’re playing against multiple all-stars, and our guys are just trying to get their feet wet in this league.”

And if Casey has caught Van Gundy’s attention, you have to wonder who else is taking notice.

As you say, nice validation. Two years ago, I couldn't watch. Last year, I was at least entertained many nights. This year I see a team truly in transition. Next year I believe they could get the 8th spot.

I love this team's culture. It's really turned into something exciting for the future. The only lacking thing now is our talent. The players are doing their jobs, the coaching staff is doing their job (Love it when all the coaches are screaming, moving, showing gestures, out of their seats, love it), now it's down to what BC does. No more quick fixes, no more short cuts.

It's time for a good build, and with an off-season to work with the coaching staff, full training camp, good draft position, Valanciunas coming in, hope for healthy bodies i.e Bargnani, we can be a good balanced team that could hit the 6-8 spots.